Call it the "Curse of Stefan Liv." One-time Red Wings prospect Stefan Liv left the Swedish Eliteserien champions, Jonkoping's HV-71, to sign with Sibir Novosibirsk of the KHL, and as such, HV-71 has out-bid the Red Wings for the services of Daniel Larsson. HV71's official website confirms:

Goaltender
Daniel Larsson, 24, has signed a two-year contract with HV71. Larsson
comes from the Detroit Red Wings organization and had previously played
two seasons with Djurgardens IF, where he earned great success and was
named the rookie of the year and the league's best goalie.

"He's
tremendously well-trained goaltender and is excellent technically. I've
coached Daniel in boys' hockey and on the junior national teams. He's a
good guy with a good head, who can play under pressure. It's going to
be fun and exciting to have him here," says HV71's goaltending coach,
Thomas Hogberg.

Daniel Larsson started his senior hockey career
with Bodens IK and moved to Stockholm for the 2005-2006 season. He
first played for Hammarby in Stockholm before he was called up to
Djurgardens IF. Overall, he played 70 games in the Eliteserien with
Djurgarden, and during the 2007-2008 season Larsson had a save
percentage of .921 and a 2.29 goals-against average.

Larsson won
the Honken Trophy for the league's best goalie in 2008 and also took
home the Eliteserien's rookie of the year award for 2008.

For the
last two seasons Larsson's played for the Detroit Red Wings
organization. Overall, he played in 93 games for the AHL-team Grand
Rapids Griffins. Among his qualifications are also 12 grade-a
international games and 43 junior games.

"He's a young and
still-developing goaltender who we are delighted to have tied with us,"
said sporting director Fredrik Stillman.

The contract with
Larsson is valid for two years.

Background stuff: I spent the better part of two hours preparing background information before HV71's website confirmed. Three Swedish newspapers had confirmed HV-71's interest in Larsson, and they pushed for the Grand Rapids Griffins goaltender so hard that Timra IK, which dropped the hint that it wanted to bring in Larsson, has dropped out of the picture, as Timra IK's general manager told Sundsvall Tiding's Maria Nordstrom:

May 19, Dagbladet (roughly translated): Dagbladet has stated that the AHL goalie Daniel Larsson, who was in Grand Rapids, [was an option for Timra]. Here Timra has had frequent discussions with the player's agent, Lars Cederstrom, but he won't choose to play for Timra.

"No, it's not the case. It's close to getting ready [to sign] with another club, but nothing is signed and so I can't reveal what's going on," says Cederstrom.

According to Dagbladet, Larsson will replace Stefan Liv with HV71. The transaction will be presented shortly.

[Philadelphia Flyers prospect] Johan Backlund has also been a name linked to HV71, but he can be crossed out because he will almost certainly remain in North America, Dagbladet has learned.

"It's been difficult to obtain a decision from Backlund," Lindqvist said.

Daniel Larsson produced great successes with Djurgardens IF from 2006 to 2008 and was named as both the rookie of the year and the goalie of the year in 2008--a unique combination.

Larsson then went to Detroit to test his luck for the NHL.

But mostly the 24-year-old with roots in Boden, Sweden has been playing with the farm club.

Now he is on his way home to the Eliteserien.

"Talking to HV"

He's finally negotiating with HV-71 and will be the one to defend the gold for the Swedish Eliteserien-champion club in Jonkoping.

"I'm talking with HV71, it's true. I have received a contract proposal and I am leaning very much toward [going] with HV71," says Daniel Larsson to Sportbladet.

Many thought that Larsson would stay with Detroit for another season, but Larsson is getting somewhat nervous that he must get an opportunity in either the NHL or the Eliteserien.

"There aren't many jobs at home in Sweden. And when HV inquired that was really exciting," said Larsson.

Wants to have a two-year contract

If Larsson signs a contract with HV71, he won't sign with an NHL club during the summer, although there is now an NHL [transfer agreement] which allows this.

"If I sign with HV I will play next season in the Eliteserien, I promise" said Larsson, who most of all wants to have a two-year contract with the Swedish champions.

HV already has goaltender Andreas Andersson under contract.

Andreas Andersson's a 31-year-old goaltender who we'd describe as a "journeyman" over here, so he isn't a threat... And I really don't know what to say about this, other than to state a few obvious points:

1. HV-71 won the Eliteserien championship in 2008 and 2010, and the team (whose name represents its biggest sponsor, Swedish saw and garden-tool-maker Husqvarna, and the year the team was founded, 1971) regularly draws big-market talent.

That being said, HV-71 couldn't compete with Sibir's offer--Ros himself reported that, after taxes, Liv will make a base salary of $5 million USD, minus some easily-attainable performance bonuses.

2. Larsson's salary at the NHL level would have been $685,000 for the 09-10 season and $585,000 for the 08-09 season, but at the AHL level, he actually took home $62,500 plus a $165,000 performance bonus ($227,500) during the 09-10 season, and $62,500 plus a $265,000 ($327,500) signing bonus for the 08-09 season.

If Larsson were to remain with the team, they'd probably offer him a salary at or around $800,000 in the NHL and an AHL cap-max $105,000 (any player earning over that amount has to be waived), so while the HV71 can't pay Larsson oodles of cash, paying him somewhere close to $1 million U.S. is certainly possible.

3. As the Free Press's George Sipple suggested a few days ago, the Wings may very well have had Larsson slated to become Jimmy Howard's back-up during the 2011-2012 season, and Larsson posted solid stats in the AHL--24 wins in only 54 games played last season, with a 2.85 GAA and .902 save percentage for a Grand Rapids Griffins team which finished with a 34-39-and-7 record, but he clearly has an itchy trigger finger regarding establishing himself again...

And maybe he saw the writing on the wall given that the Wings have openly suggested that Thomas McCollum is their "other" goalie of the future.

4. This hurts the Wings' depth in the net, obviously, and means that they have to either decide whether they're comfortable with bringing McCollum up and/or platooning McCollum and Jordan Pearce in Grand Rapids, or whether they'd prefer to have a veteran AHL goalie who'd be comfortable mentoring McCollum and playing in a little less than half of the Griffins' regular season games, essentially reprising Osgood's slated role at the AHL level.

5. Put bluntly, the trend of Wings prospects heading back home might seem worrisome to you or me--think Igor Grigorenko, Johan Ryno, Hat Trick Dick Axelsson, and now Larsson--but it's par for the course. There's no reason to worry about the Wings' ability to attract players from outside of North America or suggest that European players can't hack the minor leagues or any of that crazy talk.

When you ask somebody from outside North America to earn less money than he could back home for the possibility, if not probability, of earning an NHL job one or two years down the line, it's a developmental hazard.

In Larsson's case, I can't imagine that the Wings will hold any ill will toward him after gutting it out in the AHL for two seasons.